Peter Dane

September 2013

Sustainable benchmarking for improved

water services in the Danube-region

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Outline

• About EBC

• Proposal for sustainable benchmarking in the region

• To conclude

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About EBC

European Benchmarking Co-operation (EBC):

• bottom-up, not-for-profit benchmarking initiative of national

water associations / several utilities from DK, FIN, NL, N, S

• mission: to facilitate (European) water utilities in their

continuous efforts to improve performance and transparency

• annual exercises for water- & wastewater services since

2007

• large peer network

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Over 100 participating utilities from Europe and beyond

About EBC (2)

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About EBC (3)

Programme governance

• associations based, collaborative programme

• chair: Mr. Carl-Emil Larssen, CEO DANVA & EUREAU-pres.

• operated by Vewin

• supported by EUREAU and IWA

• in transition to “EBC Foundation”

• Supervisory Board (associations) / Advisory Board

(stakeholders)

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EBC’s benchmarking programme

Characteristics

• performance assessment + performance improvement by

learning from each other

• based on IWA’s PI-system

• 3-level model

basic

standard

advanced

Drinking water Wastewater

Context information

Service quality

Sustainability

Finance & efficiency

Context information

Water quality

Reliability

Service quality

Sustainability

Finance & efficiency

Context information

Reliability

Sustainability

Finance & efficiency

Context information

Service quality

Finance & efficiency

Context information

Water quality

Reliability

Service quality

Sustainability

Finance & efficiency

Context information

Reliability

Sustainability

Finance & efficiency

Advanced

Standard

Basic

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EBC’s benchmarking programme - assessment

Broad view on performance

• context information

• key performance areas

water quality

reliability

service quality

sustainability

finance & efficiency

Context information

Water quality

Reliability

Service

quality

Sustaina-

bility

Finance &

efficiency

Context information

Water quality

Reliability

Service

quality

Sustaina-

bility

Finance &

efficiency

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Drinking water – Water balance

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Drinking water – Financial model: revenues and costs

Closed model: revenues = costs + earnings

G-002a

Operating

revenues from

DW activities

Earnings before

taxes

Depreciation

G-038

Net interest

G-031

Self-constructed

assets

G-035

Release of

provisions

zG-EBC-003

Runing costs

G-005

Work-in-progress

Other DW

operating

revenues

DW sales

revenues from

exported water

G-037

DW residential

sales revenues

G-036a

DW non-

residential sales

revenues

G-036bcv

Earnings before

taxes

Net interest

G-031

Self-constructed

assets

G-035

General

Customer

service

Water quality

control

Water

catchment area

man.

Distribution

Production

Revenues Costs

Closed model Self constructed

assets

G-035

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EBC’s benchmarking programme (2)

Seven consecutive steps

Project

preparation

Data

collection Analysis Reporting Workshop Evaluation

Public

report

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EBC’s benchmarking programme (4)

Project preparation

• defining objectives, composing team, preparing

documents, methodology, tools, planning…

• recruiting participants (invitations, registration)

• orientation & training (kick-off)

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EBC’s benchmarking programme (5)

Data collection, analysis & validation

• good data quality: essential for confidence in results!

• how to arrange this?

clear definitions

confidence grading

data analysis & validation

results workshop

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EBC’s benchmarking programme - key deliverables

Individual company reports

• to check data & identify performance gaps

• “dashboard” presentation of results and detailed

comparisons

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EBC’s benchmarking programme - key deliverables (2)

Annual benchmarking workshop

• essential part of the benchmarking exercise

• moving from assessment- to improvement stage

• discussing (draft) results (data check, understanding PI’s)

• exchanging best practices (presentations by peer utilities)

• networking

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EBC’s benchmarking programme - key deliverables (3)

Public reporting

• shows (anonymous) key results,

good practice snapshots &

participants experiences

• for stakeholder communication &

encouraging utilities to participate

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• Network of national/regional “ EBC-hubs”

Proposal for sustainable benchmarking

EBC Found.

Western Europe

DWP

...

PL

RO

BG

GR

IBNET

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EBC-hub concept

• focus on performance improvement

• “ownership” of benchmarking at national associations

• hubs share the same methodology + local indicators

• English + local language

• programme facilitated by national associations + EBC

(joint effort)

• capacity building at the associations and the utilities

EBC provides methodology, training, ICT-platform

as much as possible, local project execution

Proposal for sustainable benchmarking (2)

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• opportunity to exchange results / good practices between

different benchmarking networks

• large utilities may directly participate in Western European

programme (linking pin)

• data submission to IBNET / authorities

• cafeteria-system: choose the way you like to organise it…

Proposal for sustainable benchmarking (3)

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Planning

Q2 2013 - DWP launch event

investigation of country priorities regarding DWP-pillars

Q3 2013 - DWP workshop 26-27 September 2013

Q4 2013 - choice of benchmarking option per country

agreement on roadmap

agreement on financing the activities

Q1 2014 - training on benchmarking essentials for country coordinators

preparing pilot exercise, recruitment of pilot participants

Q2 2014 - orientation/training of pilot participants, data collection

Q3 2014 - data validation & -analysis, draft reporting

Q4 2014 - bm workshop, final reporting, data to IBNET, evaluation

Q1 2015 - decision on final structure, further developing hub-organisation,

preparing full scale exercise, recruitment of utilities, etc.

Proposal for sustainable benchmarking (4)

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• no time to waste!

preparing a programme takes time

sense of urgency: political discussions on improving

public services & modernising the water sector

• ‘bottom-up’ approach better motivates utilities to improve

• EBC-hub concept offers local ownership, capacity

building, opportunity for the WSS-sector to standardise

benchmarking & join a large European peer network

To conclude